In orbit with Monarchy. The mysterious London-based electro duo are coming for the first time in Thessaloniki, Greece this Friday (3/12) at Partizan as a special guest of the very popular ‘Can You Relate?’ parties. Monarchy landed at Last Gas Station for an interview about their pop music, remixes and their obsession with space: “Space is now our only hope to escape from this dusty planet”. We are floating with Monarchy in space…

La.Ga.Sta.: What is Monarchy?
Monarchy: Monarchy is a duo. It’s also an ideal, a theory and emotion trapped inside a cube. We are taking this emotion with us, and exploring the world.

Monarchy is connected with space. What does space mean to you?
Space represents hope, escape, and aspiration. With the decline of religion and a limited Earth, space is now our only hope to escape from this dusty planet. It gives us the inspiration that this world isn’t the only world, that there are limitless possibilities, that there is relief from the grind and depression of day-to-day living in this society. But at the same time, it is a metaphor. Because we can escape from this world inwards. So we project Monarchy into space, but actually it’s a journey inwards to our core, to understand ourselves, and what it is to be human.

Which is your favorite planet and why?
Gliese 581g is probably my favourite. It is likely that water could exist on it’s surface, and the Gleise planetary system has a number of interesting potential Earth-like planets around it.

There is a lot of mystery around Monarchy. What is hidden behind your masks?
Maybe you would like us to say that we were burnt by acid in a jealous attack by our ex lovers, but actually we hide our identity behind the masks. By having obscured identities, it allows us to express ourselves more honestly, and also to create music without ego. It’s all about the music, and allows the music to breath on it’s own.

How can you describe the sound of your debut album and when it is going to be released?
The album will be released very early in 2011. The album is a journey, each song represents a conflict or emotion we have experienced. There’s loneliness in the sound, the coldness of deep space, but at the same time there’s a glimmer of hope, and a bond to the other people who resonate with our struggle with what it means to be human in this world. People who share this struggle will understand the album.

Is your music a way to escape reality?
It is, but it is also a way to understand what reality is. It is like meditation. By abstracting the thought process you think more deeply. By abstracting reality you start to understand it.

Which is the ideal place to listen to your album?
When the world is beating down on you, when you need to escape, that is the time to put on our album.

With which criteria you choose the tracks you are about to remix? Is there a song you had recently rejected?
We can’t tell you which songs we reject, that is a loss of faith. But for us it’s about what we can bring to the song, what we can twist in it to make it a Monarchy track. Sometimes it is quite immediate, such as the OMD remix. At other times, it is more complex. To be honest, we did not listen to the Kylie track before saying we would do it. When we heard it we didn’t know what we could do to it to make it Monarchy. So we stretched out her vocals 800%, Justin Beiber style, and then cut it up to create a new chord progression that we liked, and built it up from there. It doesn’t sound very much like the original, but it has Kylie all the way through it, which we love.

How does it feel like to “Dance in the Dark” with Lady Gaga?
You can feel her penis rubbing against you, which is interesting. We had never danced with a hermaphrodite before. Lady Gaga is amazing, we think she’s a true pop icon, pushing pop forward and being experimental where so many others are being artistically lazy. But it’s more for what is around her that we love her. Her music is good, but the Gaga message as a whole is what we really get excited about.

Which is your favorite destination?
East London is amazing. So vibrant and diverse. We really love Paris, and for completely different reasons, we also love Berlin. But everywhere we have been has their special charm and something to love. From Guangzhou to Havana, New York to Yekaterinburg, we have learnt something from all these places.

Top 3 albums and tracks of 2010…
Songs we love:
Crystal Castles – ‘Not In Love’ (feat. Robert Smith)
DJ Hell feat. Brian Ferry – ‘U Can Dance’ (Tim Goldsworthy Remix)
Robyn – ‘Indestructible’ (A-Trak Remix)
Albums we love:
Grizzly Bear – “Veckatimest”
The Chemical Brothers- “Further
Hot Chip – “One Life Stand”

What are your future plans?
We will be releasing our next single early in 2011, it will be ‘Maybe I’m Crazy’. Then another single and the album around March. We intend to tour a lot.  And keep writing. Just keep on writing music, and bringing it to people in whatever way we can. We also intend to master another language.

What is your biggest expectation for 2011?
Music continues to excite us, and we really look forward to hearing new bands, and also some of our favourite bands releasing new material. Cinema has been quite amazing lately, with 3D really taking the experience to an enhanced level. Maybe there will be some great art-house cinema mixing 3D CGI with dark themes. Technology will take another jump forward in 2011, and we will also get closer to making space travel accessible to civilians with an increased presence of private companies investing in space.

If Monarchy was a planet which one would that be?
A gas giant, slowly orbiting its sun, safely beyond the habitable zone, communicating in slow-speak with it’s attendant moons.

Kylie Minogue: Better Than Today (Monarchy Kylie Through The Wormhole Remix)

Download Monarchy’s new remix of Kylie’s ‘Better Than Today’ here.

In case you misssed it, grab Monarchy’s amazing winter mix here.